--- His kindness had gladdened life in its gay, had cheered it in its melancholy, and sustained it in its sinking moments ---he was now no more.---In the flower of youth, in the enjoyment of comfort, he had been summoned from this life,---from the banquet he scarcely had tasted, from the cup that was just raised to his lips,---from his mother's house, where last I had seen him, the abode of plenty and happiness, to the cold mansions of the grave !---She received me with pleasure ;---She strove to tell me so, but her heart was full.---Welcome was in her eye, but she could not speak it with her tongue ;---she made the attempt, however, but her words were drowned in her sobs and her tears.---She looked on me, but she thought of her son,---of the days we had passed together, our convivial nights.---The years that elapsed were forgot, and her son seemed to stand before her in the person of his friend. I strove to console her, but I wanted consolation myself;---twelve years had rolled their heavy course since I had seen her last on this spot;---what changes had since taken place in her life and my own.---The dreams of youth were vanished, the brainspun web of romantic happiness was broken, and the flowers, with which fancy graced its border, torn away. ---This, perhaps, is but ideal misery,---her's, alas! was real;---she was old, she was solitary, she was a widow, she was childless;---one of her sons had died abroad, in a distant land, among strangers, in the island of Malta.---The other, he whom I knew,---at home,---on the eve of marriage, in her arms;---she closed the eyes of him who she hoped would have closed her's, and she had not one relation remaining in the wide world;---like the North American chief she might sorrowfully exclaim,---" There is not a drop of my blood runs in the veins of any human being." ---After some time she grew more composed,---and we passed the evening in melancholy, but not unpleasing

conversation.---We talked of times that were long past, and of persons I had once well known---there was not one family among whom great changes had not taken place; and so much I fear does misery predominate over happiness, that not even in one of them was the change for the better,---many whom I left children were grown up to men and women, and had turned out ill; many whom I left old and infirm, were alive still, a burden to others, as well as themselves ;---while the healthy and vigorous, in the bloom of youth and fullness of manhood, had been snatched away, and now mouldered in the tomb.---There had been considerable emigration to America, a desire of change had taken some; poverty and drunkenness more.---This latter vice had made great progress among the youth, and several promising young men were destroyed by it.---I begged Mrs. to contrast her situation with that of their wretched parents who mourned worse than the death of their sons,---the death of their good name, of their talents, of their virtues, of their respectability ;---whose vile bodies walked abroad, while the souls, which should have ennobled them, were shrivelled, and sunk, and degraded into idiotism, by the abuse of ardent spirits, which, was I a believer in the doctrine of the Manichæans, I should suppose some malevolent deity had showered on the earth for the destruction of man. She told me several stories of individuals, it would be improper to mention here,---nor is it necessary. Misery was the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and ending of them all,---misery is an often-told tale, and well may it be so, for it is the history of man.

"'Gainst the foul fiend what can relief afford?

"Our bed he climbs, participates our board ;

Fly as we may o'er earth's extensive round, "He follows still, and at our heels is found. "From his fell looks each joy a blast acquires, "And life itself beneath his grasp expires."

CHAP. XVI.

COOTEHILL.

COOTEHILL, as the name implies, is situated on a hill, along the ridge of which it runs for nearly half a mile. The street is wide and spacious, and the houses good. ---It is in the county of Cavan, but near the extremity where it touches the county of Monaghan.---Cootehill is on the estate, and takes its name, from the noble family of Coote, which is now extinct, by the death of the late Earl of B———

----The estate was bequeathed, by his lordship's will, to his natural son, S. C, Esq. and handsome legacies were left to his other natural children, of whom he had as long a list as king Priam.---He was a decendant of Sir C. C—————, a puritan officer who came over to this country in the year 1630. Lord B. inherited none of the austerity or moroseness of his reverend ancestor---he was a man of the highest refinement, and most perfect elegance of manners; at one period he was the very mirror of fashion, "Th' observ'd of all observers !"---though the latter part of his life was passed in great seclusion, and his name was almost forgot in those circles where once he shone the gayest of the gay. He was educated at Geneva, where he imbibed liberal ideas of government, little in unison with his courtier-like appearance, and the excessive and almost dazzling polish of his manners ;-- he spent several years abroad, and returned to Ireland, a finished petit maitre. Accustomed to the elegancies of the continent, he could ill brook the roughness of Irish manners; their rude, though hearty welcomes, and above all their everlasting drunkenness. He used to express the atmost horror, and dread, of the Irish Hottentots, as he

termed the jovial generation of gentlemen, who then lived in Ireland. In speaking of the county of Cavan, of which he was a native, he thus characterized it." It is all acclivity and declivity, without the intervention of one horizontal plain, the hills are all rocks, and the people are all savages.' -Something of this excessive refinement, which shrunk like the sensitive plant from the touch of vulgarity; perhaps was real, it is probable more was affected---he delighted in resembling a Frenchman, nor could he be paid a higher compliment, than to take him for one. In the middle of one of his earliest speeches in the Irish House of Lords, he hesitated, he stammered like a country miss, and at length stopt short.-Bashfulness is not a French vice, nor was it his lordship's---his audience were at a loss to understand what all this blushing meant---he thus explained it---he had been so long out of the kingdom---had associated so little with any British person; that he was really, he was sorry, he was ashamed, but he could not express himself in English, if the noble Lords would favour him so far as to allow him to speak in French.-The noble Lords did favour him, but it was with a loud laugh at such miserable affectation. For once he was ashamed, and ever afterwards, (when in the house) spoke English like his neighbours.---A short time before, he had made a similar display to an old barrow-woman who sold potatoes, "Pray my good woman, (said he) is dis de vay to Ca-pel-street?"---" And is it a praty you want?" my lord, said she, looking up at kim with contempt, and thrusting one into his hand; "go home and ait it, it will be of more service to you, than frogs or soup-maigre." Notwithstanding this affectation (which as the fault of early youth probably subsided with it) Lord B- possessed great personal courage; though like many other of his shining qualities, it was often rendered ridiculous by its misapplication; his duel with Lord T was a strong

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proof of the singular mixture of diseased feeling, and erroneous reasoning which characterised all his actions.---He was remarkably temperate in eating and drinking.-Seldom exceeded a pint of Claret, and drank tea strong and green, in as great quantities as Doctor Johnson himself.→His ruling passion, was an inordinate love of women-to which he sacrificed every consideration of character, morality, and even humanity.-Like Mark Antony, had he the world, he would have lost it, and, perhaps, not thought it ill lost.---It is not my intention to follow him through the long catalogue of his seductions; many of which have found their way into Magazines, and other periodical publications.-The first of them was the most black and nefarious of any,-the name of the female was Miss D, daughter to a Roman Catholic on his own estate.---I do not sufficiently recollect the particulars to mention them here; but I believe they are tolerably faithfully recorded in the Adventures of a Guinea.---She lived many years in a state of helpless and melancholy idiotism.-I have heard some of the old inhabitants of Cootehill say, they have seen her, weltering in the little garden of the cottage where she was kept, with no other covering than an apron before her, tearing up the earth with her hands, and swallowing it in mouthfuls.--- His lordship married a sister of the late Duke of L, who bore him several daughters, but no son.---As this was a match of convenience, rather than affection, he soon got tired of her society, and leaving her in B F with his children, went over to England, in quest of some connexion, in which his heart could have a share.---So strangely are we formed, and so near a kin are our virtues to our vices, that Lord B- -'s excessive refinement and delicacy, and his excessive admiration of them in others, were the causes of his worst actions--- he shrunk with horror from the grossness of mercenary prostitution; from the touch of a